


Out To Get You

by flawedamythyst



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Sam Winchester's Visions, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-12
Updated: 2008-08-15
Packaged: 2018-10-15 19:43:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10556640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: Sam's visions just keep getting worse, and it's down to Dean and John to fix it.





	1. Chapter 1

_My bed feels larger than when I was small_  


 

The room was dark except for a small red light on the air-con unit, which was annoying Dean in a way a million other lights in a million other motel rooms hadn't. He'd gotten a room with one king-size bed and now he was regretting it. It was just too big, and all that space on either side of him seemed to stretch out forever, an infinity of empty bed and even emptier room. The one time he had managed to doze off, he woken up again not long after with the sheets all twisted up around him as if they were possessed.

A dog barked somewhere outside and Dean cursed under his breath. He sat up and turned on the lamp. He wasn't going to get any sleep tonight – not when all he could see whenever he closed his eyes was Sam, lying alone in that tiny room, the restraints white against his tanned skin.

He rubbed his eyes, then picked the laptop up from the bedside table and turned it on. There had to be something, some way to help Sam, even if he hadn't found it yet, even if the weeks he'd spent searching had revealed nothing. There had to be a way.

 

****

 

_A woman was walking down the street towards him. She gave him a curious glance as she passed, and he turned to watch her go. He reached out a hand, grabbed her shoulder and dragged her into an alley. She didn't have time to scream before her throat suddenly ran with blood, flowing down her neck and chest, soaking into her neat, yellow shirt._

Sam screamed for her.

_In a club, bass thumping, he flashed black eyes as he pushed past writhing dancers, taking advantage of their shock to get through. He climbed on to a podium near the middle of the dance floor, where he had a view of the whole mess of bodies below him, then gently coaxed the fires to start, one in front of each exit._

He wasn't in a motel room, he suddenly realised. It was clean and white and there was a nurse holding his wrist.

_No one's legs should be bent like that, but the man was still trying to get away, dragging himself towards the woods, making choked noises of pain as he did so._

Sam barely had time to wonder where Dean was before being dragged down into the next vision.

_A motorbike whizzed by, down the long, open road. He concentrated for a second and it suddenly pinwheeled though the air, the rider somersaulting away and then landing in a heap with a sickening crunch. He walked towards the broken shape of her on the ground, wondering why he was smiling when he felt so sick._

 

****

_Feel so small they could step on you_  


 

The visions had just kept getting more and more frequent, and more and more graphic. There was hardly ever enough detail to tell where or when they were happening, and even when there was, they never had enough time to prevent it.

When Sam was having several visions every day and taking codeine like it was candy, Dean drove them back to Lawrence and drew up outside Missouri's house. She was waiting for them on the front porch, and only took one look before she sent Dean off to make coffee, taking Sam away into the sitting room and shutting the door behind them. Dean made the coffee, then sat in the kitchen and watched it get cold, trying not to pray because when had that ever worked for them?

It was a very long hour before they emerged. Missouri ushered both of them towards the front door without saying anything, but when Sam walked glumly to the car without meeting Dean's eyes, Dean knew it wasn't good news. He went to follow Sam, but Missouri grabbed his arm with a grave look.

“You won't want to, but you won't have a choice,” she said. “He'll need professional care.” Dean stared at her, and she softened her voice.

“Dean...when the time comes, you'll have to commit him. You won't have a choice.” Dean pulled his arm away from her hand and walked away without saying anything. She was wrong, there had to be a way to stop it. He wasn't giving up.

 

****

 

_Fire. There was fire and screaming and blood and it just wouldn't stop. The smoke should have been making him choke, but instead his mouth was twisted into a smirk as the blood dripped down, and the fire destroyed the pretty blue nursery._

Sam tried to sit up, tried to get away from the image, but he was held down. He struggled weakly against the restraints.

_The man was clutching his arm to his chest and blood was soaked through his sleeve, but he still managed to raise the gun with his other arm. He fired, but there was no effect, and soon he was being held against the wall, choking on his own blood._

“No!” gasped Sam. He looked frantically around him, but there was no one else in the room.

_The cashier in a petrol station was thrown back against the shelves of liquor bottles, then fell to the floor amongst the broken glass. There was a spark and he screamed as blue-edged flames engulfed him._

 

****

_The human touch is what I need_  


 

He hadn't given up. He wasn't giving up – he never would, but Missouri had been right. Sam needed more care than Dean could give him. The visions came almost constantly now, and Sam just lay there, screaming occasionally, but usually only whimpering. He wouldn't eat, he didn't sleep and Dean couldn't even force painkillers down his throat any more. He had tried everything, phoned everyone, searched every book and website he could think of but there was nothing, no way to help Sam.

He drove slower than he'd ever driven before, trying not to think about their destination. Sam twitched and moaned in the passenger seat as they drew up in the car park of the psychiatric hospital, Dean still desperately racking his brain for an alternative.

When he'd finally left Sam there, left him in that white room, lying on the bed and twitching, he'd driven back to the motel and then sat on his bed, looking at Sam's empty one and trying not to think too much. Eventually he packed up his stuff and got a single room instead.

He called their father, hoping against hope that this would be the one time he picked up. It clicked straight through to voicemail, and Dean nearly hung up without leaving a message.

“Dad, it's Dean. Again,” he said, then paused, trying to find the words. “I've just had Sammy committed.” He couldn't think of anything else to say, so he hung up and stared at the phone for a moment, subconsciously waiting for it to ring. It didn't.

He visited Sam every day for as long as he was allowed. Initially, the doctors spoke to him every time he came in, talking about drug combinations, and possible treatments and causes. Dean had nodded, but not really listened – he knew what was wrong with Sam, and he didn't think drugs were going to make any difference. As the days slipped into weeks, the doctors began to talk more about long-term care and making Sam comfortable.

Dad didn't call back.

 

****

 

_He was holding the girl's heart in his hand. It was still beating._

He didn't know what they'd given him, but he couldn't even scream anymore.

_Another nursery, this one with pink rabbits on the walls. And, of course, blood on the floor, and fire billowing across the ceiling._

His limbs felt heavy and he didn't think he could really move them even if he wasn't strapped down. That was probably a good thing. He vaguely remembered punching Dean, back when the visions came less often, and it was just the two of them in a motel room.

_The waitress was too slow. She was too slow, and he was hungry, so he reached out and grabbed her arm. She turned around in confusion, and he tore into her stomach with his hand._

Dean was there, he realised. Dean was there, watching him. He tried to meet his eyes and smile, but he only managed a grimace before....

_She was barely more than a baby, but she'd grabbed hold of his leg when he'd started cutting into her mother, pounding tiny fists against him, so he kicked her. She flew across the room and against the wall, where she smeared blood and brains as she fell to the ground._

 

****

_The face is familiar but the eyes, the eyes give it all away_  


 

Dean had thought for one, brief, blissful moment that Sam was back to normal when he'd walked through the door and seen him lying still and calm, with none of the twitching and whimpering that he'd been doing for weeks. Then he'd taken a step closer, seen his eyes flicking back and forth beneath his eyelids, watching violence being committed somewhere else, probably miles away, and realised they'd just drugged him so he couldn't move.

Dean sat down next to the bed and watched him for a moment, until there was a brief break in the visions, and Sam's eyes opened long enough to meet his with a desperate look in his eyes and a contorted expression that might have been meant to be a grin.

“Sam,” he said, but the moment was already over, and Sam was lost again. Dean sighed.

“Sam,” he said again, knowing that Sam almost certainly couldn't hear him. “I'm going to have to leave.”

He rubbed his hand through his hair. This was much harder than making the decision had been – that had been almost abstract, thinking about it as a hypothetical situation. This was the stark reality. He was going to have to leave Sam here, trapped in a nightmare.

“It's...” he paused. “There's no other choice. I can't do anything to help you here, but maybe if I kill all the demons you're seeing, it'll all stop.”

He put his hand on top of Sam's. Sam's eyes were still shut, busy watching something Dean couldn't see. He sat like that for a long time, until the nurse came to tell him that visiting time was over.

“I'll be back,” he said to Sam, “I will be back. I'm going to kill every one of those motherfuckers, and then I'm going to come back and get you,” he said fiercely. He gave Sam's hand a squeeze and stood up.

He took one last look at Sam as he left the room. Sam didn't notice him leave.

 


	2. Out To Get You

Blood. There was always blood, smeared red across everything. It was Sam's only constant - locations flickered and changed, there was always different people, different voices screaming in pain, but the blood was always there. He could barely remember a time before it coloured his world, but he knew in the vague, abstract way that most people knew other galaxies existed that it had happened, that he had once been free of the blood and other people's pain. Dean had been there as well, he remembered that more clearly.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Dean.

 

****

 

_The old man could only choke out a faint, "Please, no," before fingers closed around his throat, already slippery with blood._

 

****

 

Sometimes, very rarely, he found himself somewhere without blood - a blank, white room, occasionally with a nurse or doctor, but usually empty. He knew that that was where he really was, where his body was while his mind skipped and bounced around the country, showing him pain and suffering. It was hard to hold on to that place as reality when all he could see was blood, though.

 

****

 

_The husband hadn't even woken up, his body still lying in bed so that he looked asleep, if you ignored the blood spreading out and soaking into the sheets, but his wife had had time to scream and jump up. She was pinned against the wall now, moaning hoarsely through a raw throat as her skin was carefully peeled back._

 

****

 

Dean used to be in the room as well, Sam vaguely remembered. He used to be sitting next to Sam, watching with tired eyes and a defeated slump to his shoulders. He hadn't been there for a long time, and Sam wondered if he'd got bored and given up - gone back to hunting, with the passenger seat in the Impala empty and no one watching his back. He didn't think Dean would just forget about him though, and he was holding on to the hope that wherever Dean was, he was working on a plan to help Sam, to make him better.

The next time Sam saw Dean, he really wished he hadn't, because Dean wasn't in the room watching Sam. He was in the vision, and the blood was his.

 

****

 

_Dean had tried to creep up behind him, but the demon whose eyes Sam was watching through heard him when he was still a couple of metres away. The knives deeply sliced into Dean's stomach and blood fountained out while Dean collapsed to the floor, desperately trying to hold his intestines in._

 

****

 

The shock of seeing Dean die was enough to shake Sam free from the visions for a moment and pull him back into the white room. A nurse was frowning at him slightly while a dark figure watched from the doorway.

Sam couldn't see clearly, but something looked familiar, so he gasped out, "Dean...help Dean," forcing it out despite the drugs sapping his strength, and then was swept away into the next vision before he could tell if he'd been understood.

 

****

 

_The boy was roughly twelve, maybe thirteen, his school bag slung over his shoulder as he walked through the woods. The demon watched him for a moment before stepping out of the shadow of the tree and grabbing his arm. The school bag fell to the ground, and a moment later, blood sprayed across it._

 

****

 

Sam was terrified after that, not sure if Dean was dead or if he'd somehow managed to escape what Sam had seen. Sam tried to remind himself that they'd changed what he'd seen before, but that had been when they'd both been there, when Sam knew what was coming and was in a position to stop it. For a time - Sam wasn't sure how long, the passage of time was all confused now - he thought that was it, that Dean was dead, and no one who cared about him was left, and he'd just be stuck in this room for the rest of his life, with death playing out behind his eyelids.

 

****

 

_The girl must have been there for days, because she couldn't even cry out anymore. Dried blood covered her dress, which might once have been pale blue but was now a dirty, rusty brown mottled with dirt. Dean came out of nowhere just as the demon plunged fingers into the wound on her shoulder, yanking it away from her. The demon waved an arm, and Dean flew back, hitting the wall with a sharp crack and then falling to the floor with his head at an impossible angle._

 

****

 

Sam was flooded with relief, even as Dean's body faded into the next vision. After all, that had to mean he was still alive, right? Even Dean couldn't die twice, and if he'd managed to escape Sam's first vision of him, maybe he'd escape that one as well.

After that, it felt like he was living from one vision of Dean to the next, always afraid that the last one would be it, that Dean had died for real that time, and Sam wouldn't see him again, not in a vision and certainly not for real. He watched Dean get choked to death, bleed from every part of his body, fall from great heights, even drown once and every time, he choked on both relief and terror, mixed together so tightly that he wasn't sure where one ended and the other began.

 

****

 

_The woman was singing softly to herself as she cooked, hips swaying to a song Sam couldn't hear. When she turned to grab the spaghetti and saw the demon standing there, she screamed. An instant later, she was flying back across the room, blood dripping from her mouth._

 

****

 

The other visions, the ones with the blood that seeped from strangers' bodies, didn't seem to matter as much now, except that Dean might turn up in them, might prove he was still alive by dying. Sam was almost used to it now, and he wondered if it was bad that blood and death didn't scare him any more, that the dismemberment of children didn't twist him up inside the way it used to.

He wasn't sure because he had no way of telling, but it felt like the visions lasted longer now, filling in more detail before skipping on to the next one, and he was sure he came back to himself more often. When he woke up for long enough to blink at the nurse and actually meet her gaze, causing her eyes to widen with shock, it was just before he saw his father for the first time in a vision.

 

****

 

_The mother was already on the ceiling, blood dripping on her baby, and then Dean was there, trying to pull her down while Dad threw holy water at the demon. It all went wrong somehow, and Dean flew backwards through the window, glass splintering, while Dad collapsed, clutching at his chest._

 

****

 

Sam had forgotten about Dad, forgotten that there was anyone apart from Dean who might still care. It had been so hard to hold on to coherent thoughts since the visions started being nonstop, leaving him no time to even sleep. It was hard some days to hold on to his memories of Dean, to remember that there was someone who was trying to help him and that this might not last forever.

It seemed that he'd got Dad on his side as well. Suddenly he felt so much better, like he might actually make it and there might be an end to this. Dean was good, and Sam was sure that he'd throw everything he had at the demons, but Dad was unstoppable. Even without Dean's blind faith in him, Sam had to admit that when it came to hunting, there was almost nothing that could stand against him.

 

****

 

_The traffic cop never had a chance, bending down to look in the car window at the same time as the hand whipped out and clasped around his neck. The other hand followed a second behind, holding a knife which swiped, quick and clean, across the cop's throat, sending a fountain of blood spraying out against the side of the car._

 

****

 

Sam opened his eyes, and there was a doctor in the room, standing next to a nurse and frowning slightly. Sam met his eyes and tried out a smile.

The doctor's eyes widened, and he said, "Mr Thompson?" in a shocked voice, but Sam was gone again before he could reply.

He watched as a demon yelled at another demon, launching a vitriolic shower of hatred and abuse at him for letting _them_ get away, and Sam didn't need to wonder who he was talking about. The second demon died in a shower of blood and Sam knew he was watching an innocent man die as well as the demon inside him, but he couldn't keep himself from wanting to smile again. Dean and Dad must have really pissed the demons off.

He could almost feel hope growing in him again. Maybe one day they would make enough of a difference that he'd be able to have a conversation, be able to look after himself...maybe even leave the hospital. He couldn't really remember what it was like to be outside the hospital, and when he tried to picture it he found himself just thinking about places he'd seen in his visions. He knew Dean had been there, beside him, and he thought he might have used to laugh at things Dean said.

He couldn't remember the last time he laughed.

 

****

 

_Most of the bar was quiet, nothing but bodies spread out like rag dolls and blood smeared over tables, but Sam could hear breathing coming from somewhere near by. The demon stopped and slowly turned around, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from, then walked purposefully over to the bar and pulled a frightened-looking barman out from behind it. Sam could feel the smirk forming on his lips as the demon pushed the man against the bar and pulled out a knife._

_"Looks like the party isn't over yet," he said. "Now, where to begin?" The man whimpered, and the first cut went in deep, across his chest._

 

****

 

Increasingly when he came out of his visions there was a nurse or a doctor there, and he wondered if he was becoming of more interest as he got better, as his lucid moments increased.

The first time he spoke again coincided with the first time he saw Dean without having to watch him die. He woke up, shaking off the vision of fire and pain, and Dean was sitting by the bed, frowning slightly as if his mind was miles away.

"Dean," Sam managed, and he couldn't believe how hoarse and worn his voice was.

Dean's whole face seemed to light up and he grinned with relief. "Sammy," he said, "They said..." but Sam didn't get to hear what they said.

 

****

 

_Another nursery, lit by flickering flames and filled with screams._

 

****

 

Sam had seen this scene so many times that he didn't even pay attention to the woman pinned to the ceiling. He'd seen Dean, actually seen him in the flesh, and for the first time in months he was able to be sure, absolutely sure, that he was alive and unhurt. The relief felt tangible, flooding the whole room, and he wondered if the woman's husband could feel it as he ran into the nursery and grabbed the baby out of the crib.

The next time he came to himself, the room was empty. He took a deep breath and felt his lungs fill - his lungs, not a demon's - and tried to hold on for a moment, wondering how long it had been since Dean was in this room, watching him. He could feel the next vision coming, beginning to burn through his mind, but he tried to hold it off, tried so hard to stay in the room. For a moment he thought he'd managed it, then he was back to watching blood fill up the world.

 

****

 

_The smoke flew into the train through the open window, and vanished inside the ticket inspector just as he was checking the ticket of a harassed-looking mother. He paused for a moment, settling into the limitations of a human body, then smiled. The mother didn't notice as she took back her ticket, not until the inspector had pushed her back against her seat and stuck his hand inside her chest._

_Her daughter started screaming in a thin, high wail as he pulled the woman's heart out through her splintered rib cage._

 

****

 

He began to count his visions, trying to work out if he was waking up more often. It was hard to keep track, and there seemed to be no real pattern for whether it was fifty images of death before he saw the white room again, or two hundred and fifty, but he was sure the intervals were getting shorter overall.

His brain was less fogged when he did wake up, and his body felt less heavy. He figured they must be slowly weaning him off the drugs now that he didn't react physically to the visions like he had when they'd first come. He had no control over what he saw, what happened to the people the demons tortured, or even over what happened to himself, so trying to move just seemed so pointless. Screaming over every death just left him tired and wrung out, and besides, it wasn't like he hadn't seen it all before.

He found himself recognising some of the staff in the hospital now - the blonde nurse who was there when he woke up at night, the bald doctor who frowned over his notes as if still tying to figure out what was wrong with him, the janitor he sometimes saw mopping the floor. He smiled at them whenever he had enough time and control to manage it, and sometimes they said something.

The blonde nurse almost always did, and after a few such occasions, "Mr Thompson?" became "Sam?" Sam smiled at her, wishing he had time to reply before his mind was swept away again.

He came to with both the doctor and the nurse in his room, managing to overhear the doctor calling her Jill before he lost contact again. The next time he woke up with her there, he managed to speak first.

"Jill," he croaked out, and she jerked with shock. He took the memory of her surprised smile with him into the next vision.

 

****

 

_The house was long abandoned with wallpaper flaking off the walls and the cracked windows. Dean was holding a flask and a book, chanting Latin that Sam recognised as an exorcism. For the first time, Sam felt pain in one of his visions instead of just seeing it. The Latin prayer was cutting into the demon's essence, burning whatever it was that it had instead of a soul._

_Behind Dean, though, Sam could see a dark figure creeping through the shadows. He tried as hard as he could to gain some control over the body, to make some sign to warn Dean, but he was only an observer, and there was nothing he could do when the shadow suddenly rushed forward and attacked Dean, throwing him to the floor as the book went flying._

_The pain let up immediately as the exorcism stopped, and the other demon straddled Dean's body and started to choke him. Dean gasped and tried to throw it off, but Sam could see his strength failing him._

_There was a clatter from behind Sam. The demon whose eyes he was seeing through swung around to see John rushing down a very dilapidated set of stairs, holding a gun and yelling. About halfway down, one of the steps suddenly disappeared beneath his feet, and he fell through, banging his head on the rail and toppling down to the bottom, where he lay very still._

 

****

 

Sam's eyes flew open with a gasp, and he tried to sit up, forgetting the restraints for a moment. Somehow, feeling pain had made the vision seem that much more real, and watching Dean and Dad die had felt truer than any of the other times he'd seen it.

"Sammy!" said a voice to his left, and Sam turned to see his father sitting beside him, eyes wide in shock. He grabbed Sam's hand, even as Sam could feel the next vision coming.

He held onto reality with everything he had, screwing his eyes shut with effort as he gasped out, "There's two of them," and "Don't trust the stairs."

He could feel himself holding the vision off, and he opened his eyes to look at his father in surprise, wondering if this meant he could control it after all. His dad was gazing at him with eyes that looked suspiciously bright, and Sam realised with shock that this was the first time he'd actually seen him with his own eyes since he'd left for Stanford.

"Dad," he croaked, allowing himself a moment just to feel his father's hand holding his. The vision crashed through his control, dragging him away, but he took that feeling of his father being there with him. Whatever happened, both Dean and Dad were fighting for him, were on his side.

 

****

 

_The man kept begging, begging for the demon to stop slicing at his wife, begging for him to just go away, then after a while it just became meaningless pleading for anything that would make this end. Even Sam began to get fed up with it, and he wasn't entirely surprised when the first thing the demon did to the man was cut his tongue out._

 

****

 

He had managed to hold the vision off, if only for a moment, and he held on to that and found hope in it. He started trying to consciously pull himself out of the visions, but that was much harder, and he couldn't be sure that he was having any success.

Dean and Dad were though, if the increasing pauses between Sam's visions were anything to go by. He found himself able to start tracking time again, able to note how long he'd been sucked in by the visions. It was the reverse of the process that had left him in hospital, gradually gaining pieces of himself back that he had lost when the visions had increased.

Jill started to talk to him when she saw that he was focussing on her, telling him how the doctor thought he was getting better, that they'd cracked the right drug combination, although she also confided that they weren't quite sure why it was working now when it hadn't before. Sam kept his amusement at that to himself.

 

****

 

_"I know you're there, John," called out the demon. "You and your boy. Well, the one that ain't crazy, anyway."_

_He turned around, but Sam couldn't see anyone on the dark street behind him. There wasn't even a flicker of movement in the shadows._

_"Come out, come out, wherever you are..." chanted the demon softly, and then there was a loud CRACK! and one of the parked cars flew through the air, crashing into a hedge._

_Sam felt the demon smirk, and he walked over to take a look. His father was crushed beneath the car, eyes open and unseeing, with a trail of blood on his chin._

 

****

 

"Sammy," said Dean, and Sam opened his eyes.

"Dean," he replied, and Dean looked almost disbelieving for a moment.

"Sam," he started, but Sam didn't know how long he had, how long he could hold off the next vision.

"Tell Dad not to hide behind the hedge," he forced out. "It knew he was there."

Dean nodded, and Sam relaxed slightly. "God, Sam, it's so good to talk to you again."

Sam smiled. "You're making it better," he said. "Dean...you've helped me so much. Thank you." The next vision was pulling at him, but he fought against it, holding on to the relieved grin Dean gave him, the way his whole face lightened as if a heavy load had been taken away.

"Hold on," he said, fiercely, "We're going to get you out of here, free of those bastards."

"I know," said Sam, gritting his teeth as the edges of his vision started to black out. "You just...be careful. They know you're coming."

 

****

 

_There were three kids playing in the back yard, and then there was only one kid and two demons. The kid didn't notice that her friends had been replaced, just grinned when the one that Sam was seeing through suggested sneaking out and going over to the woods. She glanced back at the house for a moment, then lead the way out of the back gate, completely missing the smirks that the two demons exchanged._

_Five hours later, she was lying, broken and bloodied, in the leaves beneath an oak tree._

_"Should we bother burying her?" one demon asked, the little girl's body it was using lisping the words slightly._

_"Nah," said the other one, kicking slightly at the dead girl's head. "She'll only get dug up by someone's dog or something." She looked up with a smirk. "We could burn her though - might take them a while to identify her then."_

_Sam felt himself smirk, and raised up a hand which became wreathed with fire._

_The girl's body shrivelled as it burnt, until Sam couldn't believe how little there was left of someone who had been running about, giggling, only a few hours ago._

 

****

 

Bobby came to see Sam when he was down to a maximum of roughly fifty visions between periods of lucidity, and was able to keep himself out of them for nearly ten minutes at a time. He clapped a hand on Sam's shoulder and told him that Dean and their father were still okay, which was all Sam really wanted to hear.

He added that they'd become pretty much modern-day legends among the hunting community now, taking out demons at the speed they were. He hesitated for a moment before adding that some folks were getting curious about why they were so driven, and others were investigating where, exactly, Sam had disappeared to, and it wouldn't be long before two and two got put together.

"Thing is, Sam, some hunters are pretty black and white," he said in a heavy voice. "You might get some unwelcome visitors here."

Sam swallowed nervously and looked down at the restraints that were still tight around his wrists. There wouldn't be much he could do if a rogue hunter decided to take him out, even if he wasn't lost in a vision.

"Don't worry, we're going to be keeping an eye on you," said Bobby, but Sam wasn't totally reassured. He was a sitting duck, after all, chained to a bed, behind a door locked from the outside, and surrounded by staff who wouldn't know not to let anyone in to see him, and who wouldn't be much protection against someone trained to kill demons even if they did sense something was wrong.

 

****

 

_He was at a bus station, watching as the brakes failed on the bus and it ploughed through the waiting line of people, the driver's face frozen in horror as he fought with the wheel, unable to stop it crashing into a wall. Glass splintered, metal crunched and screams filled the air._

_The demon picked his way through the broken bodies, then knelt down beside an old woman who was still alive, gasping for breath and clutching at her arm. He smirked, and carefully pushed one finger into the wound, then sucked the blood off it. Sam could taste the metallic tang of it._

 

****

 

After that, there was always someone there when he woke up. Usually it was someone he recognised - Bobby, engrossed in a book, but alert enough to glance up the moment Sam came to; Pastor Jim, quietly murmuring something Sam thought was probably a prayer; Caleb, one hand buried inside his jacket, no doubt resting on his gun - but there were others he hadn't see before. An older woman who shifted restlessly as if not used to sitting still for so long or pacing agitatedly around the room; a girl who Sam thought was far too young to be there, tossing a tiny knife in one hand and staring idly at the ceiling.

He talked to them when he was awake, but his voice was harsh from disuse, and he seemed to have forgotten how to make conversation beyond 'Are Dean and Dad okay?' and 'Has anyone tried to kill me?'

That was probably the worst bit - being trapped in the visions and not knowing if his body was about to be attacked in the real world. He found himself mentally flinching if he thought about it too much - about whether or not he'd even feel a knife cutting his throat or a bullet in his head, or whether he'd just die without any warning while watching a demon rip open someone else's stomach like it was a bag of chips.

Even the visions with Dean and Dad in them didn't make him feel better, because if they were there, fighting demons, then they weren't here, protecting him. He knew that wasn't how it worked, knew that the visions were of events that hadn't happened yet, but he didn't know what the delay on them was. He'd dreamt of Jess months before it happened, but only seen some of Max Miller's attacks minutes in advance, so how was he to know exactly where Dean was while Sam was watching him being beaten to death in a narrow alleyway? He might be just starting down the alleyway, not knowing there was demon lurking behind the dumpster, or he might be several states away, not even planning yet to head to the town the alleyway was in.

 

****

 

_The doors were all locked, but that couldn't stop a demon. The woman was kneeling by her bed, praying, and the demon chuckled cruelly._

_She looked up with a gasp, and the demon just threw the broken body of her baby onto the bed in front of her. She let out a half-cry of horror and pain, not loud enough to be a scream, as if she couldn't pull in enough air to manage anything louder._

_"He tasted like innocence," said the demon, grinning. "Let's find out what you taste like."_

 

****

 

He woke up, blinking back the sensation of blood trickling down his face, and found himself facing the barrel of a gun.

"No," he choked, and pulled hard at the restraints. Caleb was crumpled against the wall, and Sam couldn't see if he was dead or just unconscious. A large, black man with a fanatical gleam in his eyes was holding the gun, while behind him another guy was keeping watch on the door.

"Hey," said the man with the gun, almost pleasantly, "He's awake." Sam glanced at Caleb again, trying to see if he was breathing, and the man followed his eyes. "Don't worry, we're not evil like you. He'll be fine."

"I'm not evil," said Sam, still desperately pulling on the restraints, and hoping like hell that there was some kind of back-up plan.

The man snorted. "Sure," he said, "Because normal people have a line in on demons' minds." He cocked the gun. "You're tainted, Winchester, and there's only one way to deal with that."

Sam flinched backwards, and wondered if it might not have been better to have just stayed in the visions and died without ever seeing his killer. The man's hand was shaking slightly, but his finger started to pull the trigger back resolutely, and all Sam could do was clench his fists and mentally scream _NO!_

Out of nowhere, he felt a rush of energy through his body, tearing through his mind, and the man flew backwards, crashing into the wall. The gun went off, the bullet uselessly burying itself in the ceiling.

The man fell to the floor and Sam just gaped. The man by the door gave a yell of surprise and fumbled for his own gun, just as the door burst open and Bobby barrelled in. He took one, wild look around the room, then punched the guy, sending him into the wall.

"You okay?" he asked Sam, and Sam could only nod, panic and adrenalin running through him and his head exploding with pain. Hospital security rushed in a moment later, glancing around in surprise at the three crumpled men.

"Bobby," said Sam, desperately, "Bobby, you have to get me out of here."

Bobby nodded, looking grim. "I'll call your brother," he said.

Sam shut his eyes, almost relieved to feel a vision starting if it meant an escape from a world where he could throw people around like dolls with his mind. "Tell him to avoid alleyways," he mumbled as it pulled him down.

 

****

 

_The demon walked into the diner with a swagger as if he owned it. It was late, and there was only a handful of people there, but it didn't take him long to have them all screaming and streaked with blood. Ripping the head off a waitress with his bare hands had helped with that, and throwing it at the cook as he tried to duck out the back door had almost certainly cemented it._

_When the screams had all been silenced, and blood painted the walls, he smirked, and fire began to blossom out from the ovens in the kitchen. By the time he left, the whole diner was an inferno._

 

****

 

The next time he woke up he wasn't in the hospital room. For a moment he thought it was just another vision until he realised that when he inhaled in shock, his body responded. He half sat up, glancing around in a panic. He was lying on the back seat of the Impala, cocooned in a blanket so tightly that it resisted his efforts to sit up properly.

His movements drew the attention of Dean, who was driving, and he glanced over his shoulder for a moment, then pulled over suddenly at the side of the highway.

"Sammy," he breathed, turning around the moment the car stopped moving.

Sam looked around at the cars passing by and the trees by the side of the road. "Where are we?" he asked, reeling at being outside in the real world after so long.

"I-80, just outside Rock Springs," said Dean. Sam looked at him blankly, trying to remember if those places had meant anything to him before. "Wyoming," added Dean, at the blank look Sam gave him. "We're headed for a place we can hide away."

 _Hide away_. From hunters, like the two that had come after Sam before. He blinked at the memory and jerked further upright. "I pushed him away with my mind," he remembered.

Dean winced slightly. "Yeah, Gordon told us all about that when he came round."

Sam tried to see if Dean was freaking out about that, but Dean met his gaze steadily and without a hint of fear. "Is he after us?" Sam asked, suddenly realising that if they were being hunted, they probably shouldn't have stopped moving.

Dean grinned. "Nope, no need to worry about him. Turns out, ranting about psychic powers and evil in human form while in a mental home ain't a smart move. We don't have to worry about him."

Evil in human form. _You're tainted, Winchester._ "God, Dean," whispered Sam, his mouth dry. "What am I?"

"You're my brother," said Dean firmly, as if that would be enough. Sam just sighed, feeling the next vision already pulling him down.

"We're going to save you," he heard Dean promise fiercely as it crashed into him, images of blood and pain crashing through his mind. He hoped like hell that Dean was right.

 

****

 

_The man only shot the demon twice before he realised it wasn't working, then he threw the gun at it wildly instead and turned to run. The demon ducked the gun easily, and caught the man before he'd even made it out of the house._

_He pinned him to the wall and growled in his ear, "Two ways this can go, boy. Either you tell me where the Winchesters are and I kill you now, quick and easy, or we're gonna be here for days while I practice my torture techniques."_

_"I don't know," choked out the man. "I don't know where they are."_

_"Oh, shame," said the demon, mock-disappointed. "You should have gone for the easy option." There was a sharp crack as he broke a finger._

_"Please, please, I don't know," gasped out the man. "They went off the radar weeks ago - no one knows where they are."_

_It took him a very long time to die._

 

****

 

Dean was sharpening a knife when Sam woke up. They were in a room that contained little more than the bed Sam was on, the chair Dean was sitting on and a wobbly-looking table. The only sign of modernity was the shiny IV stand that was attached to Sam's wrist.

"They're looking for us," he said, and Dean put down the knife.

"They won't find us," he said, reassuringly, standing up and coming to stand close to the bed.

"They're torturing people."

Dean's jaw clenched. "No one knows where we are except Dad. If he...if they get him, we're probably screwed anyway."

Sam nodded tiredly. He couldn't count the number of times he'd seen their father die, and his childish belief that nothing could hurt him had long since faded away.

"This cabin is miles from anywhere," said Dean. "Even the people in the nearest town have forgotten it's here. You don't need to worry, Sammy, I'm gonna take care of you."

Somehow, he could still believe in that and he held onto the conviction in Dean's voice as the next vision rose up and took him.

 

****

 

_His father was dragging his body slowly, painfully across the floor, trying to get to the flask of holy water. He wasn't going to make it, Sam could see that even before the demon strode forward, kicked the flask out of reach, and then crouched down._

_"Where are your boys, Johnny?" he asked. "This could be over so easily if you'd just tell me."_

_"Go to Hell," grunted out John._

_The demon sighed. "You Winchesters always have to do things the hard way." There was a sickening sound of cracking bones, and John grunted in pain._

_"Where are they?" asked the demon again, in the tones of one who has all night, and is prepared to wait._

 

****

 

Sam gave it everything he had as the vision faded to black, and he could almost feel reality just ahead, a stone's throw away. He was already being swept into the next vision though, so he held on as tight as he could and mumbled, "Extra holy water. Tell Dad he needs extra holy water."

He wasn't sure if he'd even said it out loud, let alone if Dean was close enough to hear, but it was all he could do for now. _At least I managed that much,_ he thought as he got sucked down to a place filled with blood and screams.

He didn't know how long they were at the cabin before he started being awake enough to track the days, but it was long enough for Dean to have got past his usual initial antsiness at being stuck in the same place, and to fall into a routine. Sam only ever saw bits and pieces of his routine, and Dean always abandoned whatever he was doing the moment he realised Sam was awake, but it was enough for him to realise that Dean spent as much time as he could in Sam's tiny room. He ate in there, spent what must have been hours cleaning his weapons, pouring over demonology books and carving what looked like protective runes into the walls in there, even slept in there, on a mess of blankets on the floor.

"Isn't there a couch?" Sam asked the first time he woke up during the night to see Dean sleeping on the floor beside his bed.

Dean had woken up the moment Sam had made a tiny sign he was awake - a sudden intake of air, just to make sure that he was really awake, and in control. He shrugged when Sam asked. "It's not long enough," he said, but Sam knew he meant, _it's too far from you_ and smiled. It felt almost alien on his face.

 

****

 

_The librarian was old, probably close to retirement age. When the demon came in, he looked up from a trolley full of books with a frown._

_"I'm afraid we're shut," he said._

_"I just want a book," said the demon with a smile, then there was the bright flash of a knife with a carved wooden handle, and he fell backwards, blood bubbling out of his throat._

 

****

 

Sam woke up with a gasp. Dean was at the table, shuffling a pack of cards, but he put them down as soon as he saw Sam was awake.

"Wooden handle," said Sam with realisation.

Dean frowned. "Care to give me something a little less cryptic?"

"I've seen it before," said Sam, which probably didn't help Dean much. "He's...I'm seeing the same few demons."

Dean nodded. "Yeah," he said. "You haven't got a line in on every demon, only one particular clan, or family, or whatever the fuck demons have in the way of that."

Sam frowned. "That makes no sense," he complained.

Dean shrugged. "Near as we can tell," he said, "One of them - the leader, did something to you when..." his voice faded away, and he cleared his throat. "When he killed Mom."

"Oh," said Sam with realisation. "The nursery fires - they're all the same demon."

"Yeah, we haven't been able to get him yet," admitted Dean, "but we will. Don't worry, Sammy, Dad's out there, and he knows what he's looking for. He's going to take them all out, and then this shit will all be over with."

Sam nodded, but he wasn't really listening. "The one with the knife," he said quietly, almost to himself, "he likes carving people up. I've seen him tons of times. And lots of the fire ones must be the same - a demon who likes to burn everything when he's done." He frowned, trying to make links and connections between other visions he'd seen, but it was hard when there had been so many. They had all blended into one in his mind - just a vast mess of blood, and screaming, and watching through the eyes of someone else, someone who took pleasure out of creating pain.

He started paying closer attention, and identified another couple of the demons over the next few days - one who liked killing kids, another who favoured women's bodies to possess, and breaking into people's houses, to hurt them when they thought they were safe.

He told Dean about them whenever he was awake, told him as many details as possible so that he could pass it all on to Dad. He wasn't sure if it helped, or if Dad managed to hunt down the demons on his own, but the visions continued to dwindle in number.

 

****

 

_She was brushing her hair in front of a dressing table mirror. When she saw movement reflected over her left shoulder, she gasped and swung round, dropping the brush._

_"Tut tut, such vanity," said the demon, stepping closer. "We'll have to do something about that."_

_He pulled her hair out first, yanking it out of her head hank by hank, large chunks of scalp still attached to the roots, while she screamed and screamed._

 

****

 

He'd spent months - forever - lying in a bed, and his muscles had atrophied so much that even now he was awake long enough to sit up and eat meals with Dean, it took him a while to be physically capable of it.

Dean helped as much as he can, and Sam began to realise just how much Dean had to look after him - feeding him through a tube, turning him to avoid bed sores, the whole humiliating business with the catheter that Sam tried not to think about too much.

Dean disappeared for an afternoon and came back with a stack of books about physical therapy and rehabilitation. He read them slouched in the chair in Sam's room, a faint frown creasing his brow, and occasionally scrawled out notes on a pad of paper.

Sometimes when Sam woke up from a vision, he didn't say or do anything to draw Dean's attention, but just lay still for a while, watching Dean concentrating. It was more soothing than he'd ever expected just to be able to lie still and watch something peaceful, something he knew wouldn't suddenly explode into blood.

By the time Sam started coming back to himself after every single vision, Dean had got him doing a regular pattern of exercises, and he was able to hobble to the bathroom with Dean's help, and piss on his own. Sometimes he was even awake long enough to get bored, and he started going through Dean's books on rehabilitation. When a vision overtook him halfway through a chapter, he always came back to himself to find the book sitting on the bed next to him, his place carefully marked with a scrap of paper.

He could tell all the demons whose eyes he saw through apart now, and could tell when their Dad took one of them out from the sudden lack of visions centred on them.

The day he managed to make it through into the living room of the tiny cabin they were squatting in and collapsed onto the couch, he told Dean that he was pretty sure there was only one left. "The main guy - the one who burns nurseries."

Dean grinned. "Man," he said, sounding impressed, "Dad's pretty much managed to wipe out an entire demon clan. Who else can say that?"

Sam frowned. "You helped," he pointed out. "You started the whole thing off."

Dean waved that away as if it was of no importance.

 

****

 

_Dean was being held up against the wall of the cabin, limbs splayed and his mouth contorted with agony, while blood seeped out of the corner of his mouth._

_"Dad! Dad, don’t you let it kill me!" he gasped out, and Sam felt his mind recoil from what he was watching._

_He could hear another voice yelling behind him, but he couldn't drag his attention away from the way Dean's blood was soaking into his shirt in order to work on identifying why it sounded so familiar._

_"Dad, please," choked out Dean, then his eyes fluttered shut, and he slumped against the demon's hold, hanging against the wall as if he'd been crucified._

 

****

 

Sam pulled himself out of the vision, and sat up with a gasp. "Dean," he called out, but for the first time since they'd got to the cabin, Dean wasn't right there when he woke up. Sam froze in horror, and became aware of the rumble of Dean's voice in the sitting room.

 _Dean,_ her thought desperately, and got out of bed, leaning hard on the wall as he staggered out to the main room of the cabin.

Dean was sitting on the couch with Dad, grinning as if an enormous weight had been taken off his mind. He turned round when Sam came out, leaning hard on the door frame.

"Sammy," he greeted him, happily.

Sam fixed his eyes hard on Dad, looking for signs that it wasn't him, but the demon was too good, and there was nothing to give the game away. "It's not Dad," he choked out, and the grin fell off Dean's face.

"What the hell?" asked Dad. "I know you've been through a lot, Sam, but it's me."

Sam ignored him. "He's possessed," he said to Dean. "I had a vision."

Dean stood up, and backed away from the couch, over towards Sam. His hand went into his pocket, reaching for the flask of holy water he carried with him everywhere now.

Their father stood up as well. "Come on, boys," he said, spreading his hands out. "You must have just dreamt it, Sam. I wasted the last demon yesterday."

Sam shook his head, angrily. "You bastard, you think I don't know a vision by now?"

Dean had moved between Sam and their father now, and popped open the lid of the flask. "Get out of my dad," he growled.

Their father sighed, and looked down for a moment, When he looked back at them, his eyes were yellow, and Sam flinched back even though he'd been expecting it. Dean made an angry growl and started forward, but before he could get close, the demon sent him flying across the room until he thumped heavily into the wall. The flask tumbled from his fingers, holy water gushing uselessly onto the floor.

Sam felt the demon's power pressing him back against the wall that he'd been leaning on, and he glared at it with hatred. "I'm going to kill you," he promised.

The demon just laughed. "Oh, that'd be a neat trick." He spread his arms wide. "Go ahead and do your worst."

Sam glared at him impotently, and the demon laughed again. "Man, this is fun," he declared. "I'm so glad I waited for you to wake up rather than just killing your brother straight off."

"You son of a bitch," cursed Dean.

The demon turned to grin at him instead. "Your Dad – he’s in here with me. Trapped inside his own meat suit. He says 'hi', by the way. He’s gonna tear you apart. He’s gonna taste the iron in your blood."

Dean struggled against the demon's power, but Sam could have told him it would do no good. Dean was pinned in exactly the same way as he'd been in Sam's vision, and he knew what was coming next.

"Let him go, or I swear to God..." growled Dean.

The demon stepped closer to him. "What? What are you and God gonna do? You see, as far as I’m concerned, this is justice. You and your daddy, you've killed my entire family."

"You've got to be kidding me," scoffed Dean.

The demon moved even closer to him, and Sam struggled uselessly against the power holding him against the wall. He needed to do something, distract the demon somehow, before he started hurting Dean. "What? You’re the only one that can have a family? You destroyed my children. How would you feel if I killed your family?" The demon grinned. "Oh, that’s right. I forgot. I did. Still, two wrongs don’t make a right."

"You son of a bitch," choked out Dean, and Sam could tell he was so angry that he was probably about to do something stupid.

It was enough for him to finally find his voice. "Why?" he croaked, then cleared his throat. "Why'd you do it?"

The demon spun around to face him, moving away from Dean, and Sam felt relief flood through him. "You mean why did I kill Mommy and pretty, little Jess?"

"Yeah," answered Sam, willing the demon to keep his eyes on him rather than Dean.

It didn't work. The demon turned back to Dean almost immediately. "You know, I never told you this, but Sam was going to ask her to marry him. Been shopping for rings and everything."

Sam could barely remember what Jess had been like now. She seemed like a dream from another life completely - a fairy tale life without demons, or visions, or blood cascading down his brother's chest.

"Why?" he asked again, desperate to get the demon's attention off Dean again.

It worked, and the demon turned back to him. "Because they got in the way of my plans for you, Sammy."

Sam felt his eyes widen in shock. The demon had plans for him? "You planned for that? For me getting stuck in the visions?"

The demon tipped his head to one side. "Not exactly," he admitted. "That was a bit of a miscalculation. You're a failed experiment, Sammy, but even the best of us make mistakes, right?" He grinned, almost ferally, and stepped closer to Sam. "Did you see this?" he asked. "Do you already know how I'm going to make you boys bleed?"

Sam glared at him, the image of Dean's face screwed up in pain and anguish flashing through his mind.

"Listen, you mind just getting this over with, huh? Cause I really can’t stand the monologuing," said Dean, trying to sound casual but unable to hide the strain in his voice.

"If you're that desperate to skip ahead to the fun bit, who am I to deny you?" said the demon, but he didn't look away from Sam. "You and your Daddy killed my entire family." There was a deep, tearing sensation in Sam's chest. "I think it's time I repaid the favour."

The pain grew worse, and Sam felt blood seeping out of his skin. It hurt more than he could have believed possible, but he couldn't help feeling a sense of triumph that it was him and not Dean with blood starting to bubble up in his throat.

"No! SAM!" yelled Dean, but Sam ignored him, fixing his eyes instead on the demon's and trying to see some sign of his father behind the yellow.

"That probably stings a bit," grinned the demon, and the pain amped up to another level, until Sam couldn't breath without it feeling like razor blades were sinking into his throat and lungs. Somehow it felt right that he was finally the one bleeding after being a helpless spectator to so many other people's painful deaths.

"Dad! Dad, don’t you let it kill him!" begged Dean somewhere far in the distance, beyond the thumping in Sam's ears.

Sam's eyes slid shut, and he could feel the darkness of unconsciousness reaching up to pull him down.

"Stop," whispered his father's voice, and suddenly the pain was gone. "Stop it."

There was the sound of running footsteps, then a thump followed by a crash. The invisible force that had been holding Sam against the wall disappeared, and he fell to the floor.

"Sammy, God, Sam, are you okay?" asked Dean frantically, and Sam opened his eyes to see him crouching over him, hands hovering as if he wasn't sure what he could touch without causing Sam more pain.

"Where's...?" asked Sam in a hoarse whisper. Dean's eyes flicked to the side, and Sam looked over to see that Dean had managed to push the demon into the bedroom. He was sprawled on the floor right beneath the Devil's Trap that Dean had spent several bored hours when they had first arrived at the cabin painting on the ceiling. The demon stood up, looking annoyed and clearly back in complete control of their father's body.

"Finish it," forced out Sam, suddenly afraid that it would find some way out. "Please, Dean, finish it now."

Dean glanced at the demon, then at Sam again before nodding. "Yeah, I reckon it's time," he said, and started to reel off an exorcism. "Regna terrae, cantate Deo..."

Sam had to work hard to keep his eyes open for all of the exorcism, but he made sure he was watching when the power behind it rattled the cabin and sent the pile of books by his bed sliding onto the floor. It took a while, and Dean had to repeat the Rituale Romanum twice - Sam was impressed that Dean seemed to know it all off by heart now, but he figured that having helped to wipe out an entire demon family, he'd had a lot of practice at exorcisms - before, finally, there was an unearthly shriek and a rush of black smoke from Dad's mouth, and he collapsed to the floor.

Something in Sam's mind suddenly eased, and he sank down into unconsciousness feeling lighter than he could ever remember.

 

****

 

He woke up to white walls and the unmistakable smell of a hospital, and was scared for a moment that he was still in the mental institute, and that it had all just been part of one of his visions. When he turned his head and saw Dean asleep next to his bed, slumped uncomfortably in a chair, he realised with a rush that it was all true, that he was waking up for the first time in ages without someone's death etched in his mind.

It didn't take much more than Sam clearing his throat for Dean to wake up, and Sam could tell from his badly hidden relief, and the dark shadows under his eyes, that it must have been pretty touch-and-go for a while.

Dad came in before the nurses had responded to the button Dean pressed, and his face lit up when he saw Sam was awake in a way that Sam wasn't sure he'd ever seen before. Neither he nor Dean were willing to leave when the nurses did arrive and tried to hustle them out so that they could check Sam over. In the end, one of the nurses had to order them from the room.

"I promise he'll still be here when you come back," she said in exasperated tones. Dean gave her a disbelieving look, but allowed himself to be pushed from the room.

 

****

 

They went to stay at Bobby's as soon as Sam was well enough to leave the hospital. Sam spent a month just wandering around Bobby's property, building his strength up, enjoying the sun, and trying to get used to not being constantly on edge, waiting for the next vision. Dean spent the first week hovering around him, and then seemed to decide that Sam was well enough to cope on his own, and spent the days working on the Impala, upgrading everything he could while he had access to a car yard and plenty of time.

Dad hung around for a while, but after he'd had some time to recuperate he was clearly bored, and it was no surprise to anyone when he took off, heading down to Missouri about a possible haunting. He checked in with them every few days, though, and once or twice he stopped in for the night on his way through to somewhere else.

They were sitting at breakfast one overcast Thursday, and Sam was looking dismally out of the window, wondering what he'd do with the day if it rained when Bobby asked them to pass along the details of some missing persons in Connecticut to Dad next time he called.

Sam looked away from the window. "We could take it," he said.

Dean put his fork down and gaped at him. "What?"

Sam shrugged. "I'm all better now," he pointed out. "It'd be good to get back on the road."

Dean didn't stop staring at him. "You want to go back to hunting?" he asked incredulously.

"Yeah," said Sam, slowly, not sure why this was such a big deal.

Dean shook his head and looked down at his bacon. "I thought you'd want to go back to Stanford," he said quietly.

Sam half-laughed at the idea. "I can't imagine going back to that after everything." He paused, and tried to remember what it had been like to just go to college like a normal person, and shook his head. "The whole thing just seems like a dream, now," he said.

Dean stared at him for a moment, looking equal parts surprised and sad. He shook it off and returned to his bacon. "Alright, fine," he said. "We'll leave this afternoon."

It was raining when they packed up the car and set off down Bobby's driveway. Sam couldn't help smiling to himself as he watched raindrops run down the windshield. It was good to be on the road again.


	3. What I Need Is You

Dean blasted the ghost with rock salt, then tore up the floorboards to get at the body. Sam managed to pull himself together enough to have Dean's back while he salted and burnt the son-of-a-bitch, and Nathaniel dissolved into fire, glaring at them both.

"You okay?" asked Dean as the flames died down.

Sam reached up to touch his forehead, wincing as his fingers came away stained with blood. "Fine," he replied, ignoring the way the room was gently swaying. The last thing he wanted was to give Dean another reason to get all overprotective. "Head wounds always look worse than they are," he reminded Dean when he didn't look convinced.

Dean grunted in acknowledgement and picked up their duffle bag. "I'll patch it up back at the motel."

Sam wanted to roll his eyes, but he figured that wouldn't help the dizziness much. He bit his lip to stop himself pointing out that he was perfectly capable of patching himself up, and followed Dean back to the car.

 

****

 

Dean cleaned the wound up and stuck a gauze over it as soon as they were back at the motel, brow wrinkled with concentration as he leant over Sam. He was close enough for Sam to feel the warmth of his body. Sam shut his eyes, and just breathed in the familiar mixture of gunpowder, leather and smoke that Dean always smelt like after a hunt.

"That ought to stop you bleeding on the furniture," Dean said when he'd finished, and moved away, packing the med kit up. Sam stayed still for a moment, then relaxed back against the headboard of his bed, content to just watch as Dean moved around the room, stowing away the kit and getting out the guns they'd used and the cleaning kit.

He spread it all out on his bed and started breaking down one of the shotguns. The scene reminded Sam of all those times in the cabin when he'd lain awake watching Dean do something familiar and quiet, waiting for the next vision to strike. _No more visions,_ he thought to himself with satisfaction, and felt a smile cross his face.

"I know I'm hot," said Dean after a couple of minutes, "but you keep looking at me like that and I'm gonna start thinking that Casper managed to kill your last brain cell."

Sam snorted, and sat up properly, moving to the edge of the bed until his knees touched Dean's. He had been meaning to offer a hand with the guns, but Dean looked up at him and Sam could see the same feeling in his eyes that Sam had, that they'd finally come out the other side of this thing, and everything was finally back to normal. Without even thinking about it, Sam leant over, cupped his hand around the back of Dean's neck and pressed their lips together.

Dean froze up for a moment, then relaxed into it, his mouth soft and warm against Sam's. Sam rested one hand over the strong beat of Dean’s heart while the other pulled Dean in closer. When he pulled away Dean's eyes were wide open, and he was staring at Sam as if he'd never seen him before. Sam could tell that he was half a thought away from freaking out and running away, and he knew that they'd never get the moment back if he did, so he kissed him again, harder this time, bringing his other hand up to cradle Dean's face and keep him there.

Dean was breathing heavily when he pulled away. "Sam," he said in a low voice. "This isn't a good idea."

"No," admitted Sam, "But when has that ever stopped us before?" Dean snorted out a laugh, and tried to move away. Sam followed him, climbing onto Dean's bed instead of his own.

"Sam..." said Dean again, warily.

"Do you really want to talk about this?" Sam asked bluntly. He ran a hand down Dean's chest to his crotch and cupped his hand around Dean's cock, squeezing gently, "When we could be doing it instead?"

"Jesus," groaned Dean, and Sam saw the exact moment he made the decision, uncertainty being chased off his face by lust. "Alright then." He pushed Sam's shoulder, rolling them until he was straddling Sam's hips. "Let's do this."

Sam grinned, and pulled him down for another kiss.

 


End file.
